Please note that the NHB office is now closed for the festive period, and will open again on Tuesday 2 January.

Our website remains open for print orders, but any orders placed will not be processed until Monday 8 January. If you require your books sooner, please try an alternative retailer.

If your enquiry is urgent or if you require ebook support, please email us as this is being checked intermittently - we will do our best to help and we will get back to you as soon as we can. In the meantime, if you need help with any ebook issues, please take a look over our ebooks help page.

Thanks, and have a Merry Christmas!

We're delighted to reveal the five plays selected for publication in VAULT Festival 2018 anthology Plays from VAULT 3. They are:

• Tumulus by Christopher Adams
• Glitter Punch by Lucy Burke
• Burkas and Bacon Butties by Shamia Chalabi and Sarah Henley 
• Wind Bit Bitter, Bit Bit Bit Her by Sami Ibrahim
• The Strongbox by Stephanie Jacob

The anthology is published on 25 January, and is available to pre-order now.

VAULT Festival is London’s biggest and boldest annual arts festival. The 2018 event runs 24 January - 18 March 2018 at The Vaults, Waterloo, London. There'll be over three hundred new shows, plus new venues, new bars, new food and plenty of surprises – see more on the VAULT Festival website.

The winners of this year's Evening Standard Theatre Awards were announced yesterday (Sunday 3 December), with NHB plays and authors triumphing across a range of categories.

The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth was the night's big winner, scooping Best Play, Best Director (Sam Mendes) and the Emerging Talent Award (Tom Glynn-Carney). in this thunderous drama, set in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, in 1981, the Carney family's traditional harvest celebrations are interrupted by the arrival of a visitor, whose shocking news threatens to unravel all they've built. First seen at the Royal Court earlier this year, the play is currently running at the Gielgud Theatre, where it has recently extended until May 2018.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins was honoured with the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright for An Octoroon, his dazzlingly inventive comedy which draws on Dion Boucicault's 1859 original melodrama to explore issues about race and identity in America today. After receiving its European premiere at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, An Octoroon will transfer to the National Theatre in 2018.

Elsewhere, Andrew Garfield is shortlisted for his performance as Prior Walter in the National Theatre's acclaimed revival of Tony Kushner's epic Angels in America. The production will transfer to Broadway in February 2018.

The winners of the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2017 were announced at a ceremony at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, hosted by actor, Fleabag creator/star and NHB author Phoebe Waller-Bridge. To see the full list of winners, visit the Evening Standard website.

The Papatango New Writing Prize 2018 opened for entries today (1 December), with writers able to submit their script until midnight, 28 February 2018.

The winner of the Prize will develop their play with Papatango over several months, building towards a four week production at Southwark Playhouse in autumn 2018. The script will be published by NHB. The writer will receive a royalty of 10% of the gross box office income. Following the production, the writer will be paid a £6000 commission to create a new play with development support from Papatango.

Entries must be full-length, and an original, unperformed and unproduced piece of work. For further information, including how to submit, visit the Papatango website.

We're extremely proud to have published seven Papatango Prize-winners to date:

• 2011: Foxfinder by Dawn King
• 2012: Pack by Louise Monaghan
• 2013: Unscorched by Luke Owen
• 2014: Coolatully by Fiona Doyle
• 2015: Tomcat by James Rushbrooke
• 2016: Orca by Matt Grinter
• 2017: Trestle by Stewart Pringle

The very best of luck to all entrants, and we can't wait to see what you come up with!